A melancholic romantic, “the last of the Mohicans” of haute couture, who considers it inseparable from the other arts, be it theater or classical ballet, Franck Sorbier told us in the interview that the starting point for the creation of a collection can be, for example, an excerpt of the poem, noticed in a subway, or, as it happened this time, a movie poster, by which the designer was pausing each time.
This poster has been dedicated to the “Palme d’Or” winner of the 67th Cannes Film Festival – the “Winter Sleep” of Turkish Nuri Bilge Ceylan. A man, who seemed lost in its loneliness among the snowy steppes of Cappadocia, inspired Sorbier to the creation of a collection about the eternal snows. And since they a primarily present on the “roofs of the world” – the highest mountains of the Earth, his textile creations the storyteller of haute couture Frank matched with those peaks. This is how images of Mount Fuji, Mount Everest, Mont Blanc, Ararat, Kilimanjaro, Mount Vinson and others appeared. Symbolic forms of rotating in a frenzied whirlwind snowflakes and ice crystals, snow mantle, covering the entire land, stopping the passage of time – the master embodied them in noble shades of white fabric – organza, muslin, silk.
But Franck Sorbier would not be true to himself if he brought down the idea of his collection to a common defile. As by a magic wand, on the stage of the Parisian Hébértot Theater comes out Laura Hecquet – the prima ballerina of the Paris Opera and the godmother of the collection. She opens the show with a fascinating dance in a dress symbolizing China’s Yulong Xue Shan – “snowy peak of the Jade Dragon mount”. Following Laura young sylphs-like ballerinas, in as if powdered with frost suits-dresses continue to celebrate the winter extravaganza of haute couture, showing us that eternal snows, sleeping at first glance, hide under their covers a whole world, the admission to which is only reserved to initiated.
Photo credits: Franck Sorbier